Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

National Security Archive 20th Anniversary: Celebrating 20 Years of Keeping Government Honest

The National Security Archive celebrates its 20th anniversary today with a special event at George Washington University, headlined by Bill Moyers, with Seymour M. Hersh, Tina Rosenberg, Scott Armstrong, Geneva Overholser, Walter B. Slocombe, Morton H. Halperin and Sherry Jones. You can download audio of Bill Moyers’ keynote address as well as the panels with the other speakers. Moyers once again does an amazing job! If you haven’t heard him talk (and even if you have!!), you’re in for a real treat.

Newsday: Cadre grows to rein in message

Between September 2000 and September 2004, the number of public affairs officials rose 9 percent, from 4,327 to 4,703, in executive-branch agencies, according to U.S. Office of Personnel Management statistics. Meanwhile, the federal work force grew 6 percent.

The cost of public affairs staffing has grown by more than $50 million, records show, from $279 million in 2000 to $332 million in 2003, the last year for which figures are available.

More evidence that the federal govt is working extremely hard to control the message as well as the amount of information available to the public. This should be worrisome for civil rights advocates.

Official loses copyright case
By MIKE HOYEM, The News-Press Bonita Springs Florida, December 8, 2004.

A court has ruled Collier County Property Appraiser Abe Skinner cannot copyright maps created by his office and demand royalties from those who use them to make a profit. Wednesday’s decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland was hailed as a victory for public records access by the First Amendment Foundation, an open-government advocacy group in Tallahassee.

Shhh … someone might hear you.
By Alex Johnson, MSNBC
Updated: 6:19 p.m. ET Nov. 18, 2004.

On the occasion of Attorney General Ashcroft’s resignation, MSNBC reviews his contempt for freedom of information. One particularly notable case was the redaction of almost half of a report on workplace diversity
in Ashcroft’s Justice Department. The redacted portions were uncovered, however. MSNBC notes:

According to the Justice Department, these facts were too sensitive
for Americans to read about:

# "Attorneys across demographic groups believe that the Justice
Department is a good place to work."

# "The Department does face significant diversity issues."

# "The Department suffers from an inadequate human resources
management infrastructure."

# "Section Chiefs are an extremely critical element of the
Department's diversity climate. They have significant authority in
recruitment, hiring, promotion, performance appraisal, case assignment
and career development."

# "Minorities are significantly under-represented in management
ranks."

Announcement of Intent To Initiate the Process To Remove
Aeronautical Information From Public Sale and Distribution
AGENCY: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Department of
Defense.
FR Doc 04-25631.
Federal Register: November 18, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 222)]
[Notices]
[Page 67546-67547]

SUMMARY: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) intends to
remove its Flight Information Publications (FLIP), Digital Aeronautical
Flight Information File (DAFIF), and related aeronautical safety of
navigation digital and hardcopy publications from public sale and
distribution.

This action is taken to accomplish the following objectives:
safeguarding the integrity of Department of Defense (DoD) aeronautical
navigation data currently available on the public Internet; preventing
unfettered access to air facility data by those intending harm to the
United States, its interests or allies; upholding terms of bi-lateral
geospatial data-sharing agreements; avoiding competition with
commercial interests; and avoiding intellectual property/copyright
disputes with foreign agencies that provide host-nation aeronautical
data.

Thanks to BeSpacific

The Arrival Of Secret Law
by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News,
Volume 2004, Issue No. 100.
November 14, 2004.

Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know.

This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory. It is part of a continuing transformation of American government that is leaving it less open, less accountable and less susceptible to rational deliberation as a vehicle for change.

Harold C. Relyea once wrote an article entitled “The Coming of Secret Law” (Government Information Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2, 1988) that electrified readers (or at least one reader) with its warning about increased executive branch reliance on secret presidential directives and related instruments.

Back in the 1980s when that article was written, secret law was still on the way. Now it is here.

OMB Watch - NRC Removes All Nuclear Information from Its Public Website

This just in: NRC Restores web docs. Thanks Jim!

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) pulled its entire public reading room offline (editor’s note: Oct 25th, and as of today, Nov10th, they’re still offline!) after stories broke about possibly sensitive material on the website. They agency defended its action by saying it is trying its best to balance security and right-to-know.

Here’s the NRC’s news item for October 25th explaining themselves. Strangely though, ” No classified or safeguards material is now or has ever been permitted on the NRC Web site.” So why are they pulling access to public information?

[Thanks OMBWatch!]

GovTrack.us

GovTrack.us is “a nexus of information about the United States Congress.” This site is a project of
a single person, Joshua Tauberer, a University of Pennsylvania first-year graduate student in linguistics. The site is not fast and is sometimes
not even reachable. But it is worth your time to take a look because it shows what can be done when information is marked up with XML.
Tauberer retrieves information daily from Thomas and the House and Senate websites. His programs convert all the information they retrieve to XML and then uses the XML files to produce statistics, track bills, create RSS-feeds, and more. He makes he XML files freely available, too!

This site is a crossroads for data on the status of legislation, the activities of representatives, campaign contributions and other statistics, and public commentary. Best of all, you can track Congress with personalized email updates.

“Actions to Strengthen and Sustain GPO’s transformation”

This is report by GAO in June 2004 evaluating the Government Printing Office

Expats blocked from official Bush website
27 October 2004.

This story points out that “American expats are unable to visit the official website of US President George W. Bush.”
It notes a similar block on an official government web site:

The block follows a similar ban on some overseas visitors to a US government-run expat voting information site.

In October it was revealed the Pentagon had blocked access to its voter information site (www.fvap.gov) by some foreign Internet Service Providers, including Wanadoo in France and Telefonica in Spain.

The block was removed following uproar among voter registration advocates. The US Defense Department at first said the block was placed on Pentagon websites to prevent attacks from hackers, but later said the barricade on the voter registration site had been left on inadvertently.